


Moon of blood and hatred

by JupiterGoddess



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24891478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JupiterGoddess/pseuds/JupiterGoddess
Summary: The night when Link saw the Bloodmoon rise for the first time.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Moon of blood and hatred

Exhaling deeply, Link sheathed his sword. Done. One more camp of Bokoblins and Moblins cleared. Those monsters sure were a pest.  
Content, he let his eyes sweep across the area. So far, there were no more threats. He had completed a good day's work, helping people and actually clearing four entire monster camps. Not too shabby.  
He glanced up at the sun. It had sunken lower than he had expected, almost touching the horizon. The shadows had accordingly grown long. It was time to look for a place to spend the night.  
Link headed for his horse, which he had bound to a tree in a safe distance. When he was in the saddle, he gently guided it across the meadow. Unfortunately, he was too far from any village or stable, so a proper bed was out of the question.  
But luck still smiled at him. Only a few minutes' ride up the slope, he came across an overhang, almost a cave. It was deep enough to provide both him and his horse shelter.  
There was no point in looking for something else. The blonde Hylian decided to stay here for the night. After securing and tending to his horse, he took some of the wood he was carrying along and minutes later, a fire was merrily crackling. After a proper dinner of game meat he had hunted earlier in the day, he just sat and watched the fire until it started to burn down, all the while brooding over everything that had happened since he came to in the Shrine of Life. Only when the fire was little more than simmering embers, he extinguished it and lied down, with one blanket to cover himself, and another serving as a cushion. It would be no use of staying up any longer. And the sooner he went to sleep, the earlier was going to be on his way in the morning.

Something woke him. For a few moments, he was disoriented. When he finally shook off the last bis of sleep clouding his mind, he noticed it was still dark. Hylia, how long – or little – had he even slept?  
Then he heard an agitated snort and the scraping of a hoof. His horse was clearly upset by something, and the noises must have been what had woken Link.  
The blonde warrior got up and stroked the horse's head and broad neck.  
"Shh, boy, shhh. Everything is alright."  
As he continued to soothe it, Link wondered what it could have been that agitated the animal so much. Judging by its reaction, it must be something bad, but nothing too dangerous. Because in that case, it would be freaking out.  
And… what was this feeling of wrongness that suddenly had settled over him?  
It was then that something outside the cave drew his attention. A reddish glow that seemed so out of place. He walked out from under the overhang to see what this was about – and drew a sharp breath.  
The moon. What happened to the moon? It had been closing in on being full, a not yet round silver disk on the sky. Now, however, a blood red orb hung on the sky. The reddish light it spread renewed Link's feeling of wrongness. And this moon gave off an aura of vileness and many other negative emotions, which weighed down heavily on him.  
"What… what is that?", he gasped.  
Never before had he seen anything like it. Not even before his slumber in the Shrine of Life. Something like this, he was sure he would still remember, no matter how long he would have laid in there. What in Hylia had happened? Well, whatever it was – he was a Bokoblin if this wasn't somehow Ganon's doing. And as if a red moon wasn't enough, now even a red mist started rising from the ground.  
The young Hylian cursed. Whatever was going on, he knew it wasn't good.  
"Link… Link."  
That voice. He had heard it twice before. It was Zelda.  
"Princess!", he called to her. "Princess, can you hear me?!"  
Apparently, she couldn't, because she went on, not reacting in the slightest to his words. "Be on your guard. Ganon's power grows… it rises to its peak under the hour of the blood moon. By its glow, the aimless spirits of monsters slain in the name of the light return to flesh."  
And true enough. Through the red haze, cloud-like wisps appeared and drifted towards the camp below. Where they promptly materialized back into Bokoblins and Moblins. Looking alive and healthy as ever.  
"N-no way…!"  
Link couldn't believe his eyes. The monsters were back! The ones he had finished off only mere hours ago! If anything, they looked even more menacing with their red glowing eyes.  
"Link… please be careful."  
With that, Zelda's voice vanished. Just as the red fog finally lifted again as well.  
The blonde warrior had to sit down into the grass. While the fog was gone, the moon was still red and bright enough so he could see the monster camp somewhat clearly. There they were walking around merrily once more.  
For naught… everything had been for naught… he imagined how in the other empty monster camps were now filling again, with the same monsters he had slain, with more or less effort.  
"So no matter what I do, with this blood moon, the dead monsters return and will continue to terrorize the people", he muttered to himself.  
It was, to be honest, quite the disheartening revelation. All his work rendered useless. Weeks and weeks of killing monsters, only for them to be resurrected in the mere blink of an eye. As if he and the people of Hyrule were trapped in an endless, cruel time loop.  
Still... There was no helping it. He had to carry on. He had to help those in need wherever he met them, and he had to finally free Zelda. To slay Ganon. In fact, the sooner he ended all of this, the sooner the people of Hyrule would be safe again. Resolve stirred inside him, flickered to life like a flame.  
And yet…  
He knew that he shouldn't feel like this. But at that moment, he hated Ganon with every fibre of his being.


End file.
